Dental plaque adhering to tooth constitutes a problem in oral hygiene and aesthetics. Cleaning the tooth by a toothbrush is most common for removing dental plaque and other coloring matter. In addition to this, interdental brushes, froth, hand scaler, air scaler and ultrasonic scalers are used. Furthermore, in dentist's sand blasting an abradant is sprayed on a tooth using compressed air or compressed air and water. Sodium bicarbonate, calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, alumina, etc. are suggested as abradant used for this sand blasting (JP 11192244).
When treating sensitive tooth surfaces, like root dentine or other less strongly mineralized tooth surfaces, with a powder-jet device, it is recommended using powders with a low density and a low mean particle size of not more than 45 μm (US 2010/0297576). This document suggests using a powder for powder blasting with a powder-jet device wherein said powder contains an alditol having a low mean grain size of no larger than 45 μm. However, this powder is suitable for soft cleaning only because of its low abrasivity.
A dental powder-jet device including powders for dental abrasion is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,485,304 B2.
JP 2003-226628 discloses particles which support a fluoride ion supply compound and which can be incorporated for example in a mouth wash, chewing gum or dentifrices, such as tooth paste. It is said that the particles advance and remain inside the lacuna rill which is a favorite site of caries. Thereby the generating of caries of a lacuna rill part are inhibited by operation of the fluoride ion which is gradually released from the particles over a long time.
KR 2001-045447 discloses calcium carbonate particles being surface modified using fluorides. It is said that the modified calcium carbonate has a high acid-resistance, whiteness, and sterilization required for fillers, coaters and sterilizers of papers, cosmetics, tooth paste and pigments.
A home-made remineralization tooth paste recipe is disclosed on the web page for Wellness Mama®. This tooth paste contains five parts calcium carbonate, one part diatomaceous earth, two parts baking powder, three parts xylitol, one part liquid castile soap and 3-5 parts coconut oil. The xylitol is said to be not completely necessary but keeps the tooth paste from tasting bitter.
JP 1119224 discloses an abrasive compound for dental sand blasts which comprises an alditol, such as xylitol. It is said that by the use of xylitol the quality of the abrasive compound can be improved in taste.
The known abrasive powders for dental powder blasting have the disadvantage that they only have an abrasive effect, i.e. their only purpose is to clean the tooth surface for example by removing dental plaque or other coloring matter. On the other hand the enamel layer of the tooth is constantly attacked for example by the salvia resulting in a possible loss in density and/or thickness of this layer. In fact it was found that this damaging effect can even be increased by common abrasive powders. There is therefore still a need for improving the known abrasive powders, for example such that their damaging effect on the density and/or thickness of the enamel layer is reduced. Preferably the abrasive powder should even have a beneficial effect on the tooth, such as remineralization, thereby increasing the density and/or thickness of the enamel layer.